Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1938. OUR UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 June 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1938. OUR UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.

JT is rather easier to find fault with the existing organisation of university education in this country than to point to an effective remedy or remedies. A large proportion of our university students admittedly are burdened and handicapped by having to earn a living while taking degree or other courses. Not a few of them acquit themselves wonderfully well under this handicap, even in competition with full-time students, but more liberal and leisured conditions of study undoubtedly are desirable for those who have the ability and resolution to apply themselves to the higher branches of learning. Problems in this category will hardly be solved—certainly will not be solved in their entirety—by any immediate reorganisation of the university colleges. In Auckland, where action on these lines is under consideration, some sort of compromise, presumably must be struck between the claims of full-time students and those whose opportunities are more restricted. From year to year, in all parts of New Zealand, there are numbers of students who are keenly intent on securing university education, but are not in a position to attend a university college as full-time students. The exclusion of these students from university courses is out of the question, whether from a national standpoint or from that of justice to the individuals concerned. A. reasonable view of the position was taken by the Rev T. C. Hammond, principal of Moore Theological College, Sydney, when he was interviewed in Auckland a few days ago. If the full-time university system could be introduced in New Zealand (Mr Hammond observed in part) it would, he thought, be of considerable benefit to students and their country. There was, of course, the opposite view that a young man derived more advantage from taking the hard knocks of experience in the outside world, but. his own opinion was that these knocks could just as well come after university life. For those who could not afford a full-time course, opportunity for taking night lectures should undoubtedly be preserved.

Anything more than a rather gradual extension of the full-time university system probably is impracticable in New Zealand, but there are other ways in which the existing state of affairs possibly might be modified with advantage to deserving students.

It would probably be much better, for example, that students, partly or wholly dependent on their own earnings, should work only for part of the year and attend a university college during the remaining period. Some rearrangement of terms and courses to meet the requirements of students prepared to pursue their studies in these conditions might be well warranted. The provision of additional hostels, in which students could lodge at moderate cost while enjoying the advantages of university corporate life would also be very helpful.

Short of the general institution of a full-time system, for which the time seems hardly ripe, a good deal undoubtedly might be done to improve upon the existing conditions of university attendance in New Zealand. It should be quite feasible to devise arrangements under which the necessity of working for a living would impose no such handicap upon a large proportion of our university students as it does today. It is by no means certain that an ideal university system for a young democracy like New Zealand would not impose on all students the obligation of making some working contribution to their own support during their period of university training. Economic considerations apart, something might be done in this way to broaden and strengthen the purely educational basis of university life.